Offering equity to your employees is an essential tactic for talent acquisition and retention. Here are some resources that can guide you in the process. Stock Option Plans are a fantastic way not only to attract, but also to motivate your team, especially if you are not yet able to pay high salaries. If the company grows, everyone wins.
Employee Equity Plans
Start Here
- A great crash course guide on offering equity to your employees, by Gusto.
- How to create a compensation philosophy, by Homebrew.
- 9 terms you’ll see in your startup equity offer – And what they actually mean, by AngelList.
- A no B.S. guide to start-up stock option grants, by Skillshare.
- How to discuss stock options with your team, by Mark Suster.
Deeper Exploration
- Deciding how much equity to give your key employees, by Techchrunch.
- A 10-post series on employee equity, by Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures).
- Recommendations for Start-up Employee Option Plans, by Andreesen Horowitz.
- Understanding Equity Compensation, by Compound.
- Counterintuitive comp tips for unwary and uninitiated, by First Round Review.
- The Holloway Guide to Equity Compensation, by Holloway.
- When you want to communicate stock options to new hires, consider this offer letter template, by Carta.
Legal Templates
- Draft Stock Option Agreement and Equity Incentive Plan, by UpCounsel. (Please, please review this with a lawyer and customize it for your use).
- A list of legal templates for equity compensation, by Orrick.
- US Law: Code Section 409A Waiver and Release Sample Clauses.
Cap Table Management
- Manage your cap table with Carta, Capshare, CompTrack, or Captable.io.
Compensation Benchmarks
- Index Ventures’s option plan global benchmark.
- Estudio de Renumeración México 2020, by Page Group.
- AngelList provides benchmark data for start-ups.
- LinkedIn and Glassdoor have salary data by role and company.
- Average salaries for software developers around the world, by Daxx.
- Average Silicon Valley % ranges post-Series A, by VentureHacks.
- TLDR Options Calculator, by CapTable.io.